Former Australia cricketer who took 98 Test wickets in Ashes series.
Coached Pakistan and has been a commentator on the game since 1992.

England sleepwalking towards defeat

Ten minutes after the lunch break yesterday the Sky Channel commentators (the English ones only) starting searching the skies for rainbows, which naturally would have a pot of gold and the odd Leprechaun reclining at the end.

Headingley so often invokes the fairytale of 1981 and as Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad launched strokes to all parts of the ground, making the second most unlikely lower-order partnership in Leeds Test history, Bumble and the boys were forecasting a repeat. A hundred runs came in 73 balls, not all out of the middle of the bat but most were not far from it, and that was the major difference between Botham and Dilley's effort 28 years ago.

Ian Botham certainly chanced his arm way back then and repeated the mantra on the television yesterday, " nothing to lose… no point being defensive.. ride your luck… ". It's not a bad philosophy when the game is beyond saving. It also helps if you can handle the bat fairly well, as Beefy could.

Swann and Broad hit the ball much more certainly than Botham did, but Botham did it for much longer! Long enough to get 130 in front. Sky even threw up the scorecard graphic of the third in Test 1981, perhaps willing the cricket Gods (why are there always plural cricket Gods not just the single omnipotent being?) to bring forth a repeat performance.

Do these people not grow weary of the reference to such a one in a couple of thousand match?? Wake up and smell the Kolpak players before it is all to late!! The wishful thinking eschewed by the former players could do nothing to wallpaper over the gaping cracks that have suddenly appeared in the English team.

There was only three things amiss with their effort: the batting, the bowling and the fielding. How the dynamics of the series have changed in two and half days of cricket. The series is level which means England have to take 20 wickets at The Oval. Australia can play a slightly more conservative brand of cricket, not one that goes naturally against the grain but when it comes to declarations or third man, Ponting has options. Strauss has run out of them.

The Australian selectors showed little patience with young Hughes and the move has paid off. England have stuck with Bopara and he has failed spectacularly. Can they afford to hang onto him for one more Test and keep their fingers crossed? The Australians will be hoping so.

The Aussies have Johnson coming good and the batting now looks deep and mostly in late summer form. The Ashes are not so much sneaking away from England's grasp as bolting at the full gallop and they have used up all their fairytale wishes.